After two years of relentless bad news, the UA seems to be turning a financial corner. President Peter Likins' announcement Thursday that Campaign Arizona, the UA's billion-dollar fundraiser, has reached its goal 21 months early is by far the most significant sign we've seen that the university's budget woes may be ending.

But the $1 billion won't solve all our problems. Almost all of it comes in the form of restricted funds, which means it must be used for donor-specified purposes.

Those can include building projects, endowments or almost anything else, but once the donor gives the money, the university has no discretion about how it's used.

That means that most of the money can't be used for what many would consider the UA's most serious need: raising faculty salaries.

The loss of faculty members is probably one of the most difficult, but important, problems the UA must solve.

It's a two-part problem, and unless the Arizona Legislature suddenly realizes that university faculty members need better pay and facilities, the responsibility of solving that problem will fall to private donors, as well as students, who will have to shoulder a higher tuition burden.

The success of Campaign Arizona and last week's groundbreaking of three medical research buildings mark an important step in solving the facilities problem. The new buildings will make a huge dent in the university's research space shortage. The National Institutes of Health estimated that the UA needs an additional 500,000 square feet of space to reach an ideal level.

Donors have long demonstrated an interest in funding new construction projects, and in many cases it's probably because they get to see their names on thebuildings.

It's much more difficult to convince donors to give money for faculty salaries. The reward is far less tangible, unless they endow a specific faculty chair. But to do their part at solving the faculty retention problem, donors must consider giving money without restrictions so that the UA can direct it toward the general salary pool.

That's the other half of the answer to our problem, and should be the focus of Campaign Arizona's remaining 21 months.